On teeth, dresses, and church

Today was a day full of mixed emotions for me.  It started with a final trip to the dentist for my permanent crown which completes the work to repair the accidental damage my mouth suffered on Mother’s Day.  Lying on my head (he puts the chair waaay back) in the dentist’s chair I listened to him croon to me how good it was turning out, and how pleased I was going to be with the final product.  The thought that kept going through my mind was that I would look like my Daddy again, and the familiar lump in my throat began to form and water dripped from my eyes.  I wiped it quickly away so my dentist would not think he was hurting me.  He gets very upset if he thinks he’s causing pain.  I really like my dentist.

Later this afternoon I went online and browsed for possible dresses to wear to my nieces’ weddings in March and May.  The thought of finding two dresses for two weddings two months apart is a little more than I can handle.  My mental capacity for the thought of wearing not just a dress, but a dressy dress, was too much for me, and I had to lie in bed and shop on my tablet for lack of energy.  The last time I wore a dress was to my daddy’s funeral.  I generally do not wear dresses or skirts.  They make me look like a bell; a really big bell, like the Liberty one, not a belle like a Southern one.  I want to feel good at the weddings, not like I could clang at any moment.  I’m thinking of going Stevie Nicks style, with a flowing dress with lots of scarves.  I could be the weird aunt no one talks about, the one who thinks she’s Stevie Nicks.  It’s better than being a bell.

I drug myself out of my funk in time to go to the inaugural mass of the new St. Fabian Catholic Church.  I have been very excited about the thought of having a church close to my home.  In all honesty I have not been a regular attendee at mass for awhile now.  It’s not because I have fallen away from God, or do not believe in going to church.  One reason is I use the excuse of the distance to church and it became a habit.  Another reason is I’ve just never felt like I belonged anywhere.  I can walk into mass at any given time at either of the Catholic churches in town and walk out without having spoken to a single person or had a single person speak to me.  I want a place where I feel I belong and I hope I can make St. Fabian’s that place.  I’m going to try, anyway.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one excited about a new church.  In a room set up to hold a little over two hundred people there ended up being twice that many plus a few extra.  There was energy in the room and I liked the way it felt.  It was a feeling of the Holy Spirit at work, gathering together a body of people to start something new to give Jesus a greater presence in the community.  When I have these feelings I tend to get emotional and the lump forms and the eyes fill.  This happened a few times tonight, and like in the dentist’s chair I managed to keep it under control.  But this time I had an audience.  

There was a man standing in front of me holding his very young daughter.  As children are apt to do she stared at the person behind her - me.  I wonder what she was thinking.  Did she think I was sad?  Did it frighten her to see a stranger about to cry?  Once she even clapped her hands at me as if to say, “Snap out of it, lady”.  Nah, I think on some level she knew what I was feeling.  I think children are naturally intuitive.  I think they can see through a person to their soul.  The Cousins and I have had many discussions about this, so I know it’s true.

Tomorrow it’s back to work answering phone calls, answering email, answering questions.  Tomorrow I’ll have all of the answers.  Tonight, however, I’ll go to bed with questions.  Does my new tooth look natural enough that no one will know the difference?  Is my faith leading me to a new place where I can feel I belong?  Am I finally hearing God’s voice answering my prayer to make me useful?  What would Stevie Nicks wear to a garden wedding?  My mind is never quiet.

Something to laugh about

There is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t laugh about something.  I can’t take life too seriously or else I might find myself in a dark place too far below the surface to pull myself out.  There’s a fine balance between the evil and the good in this world.  I try to tip the scales in favor of the good as much as possible, and part of that weight is my attempt at adding the strike mark through the dash and turning the negative into something positive and find something to laugh about.

Besides, I like funny.  

I have favorite movies, television shows, and comedians that make me laugh, but I find the most comedy in myself.  I can make myself laugh more than anyone or anything else.  It’s because I do such stupid things when I’m alone and no one’s watching.  These are things I would never do in mixed company.  My singing, for example, can be so bad that I have to stop in mid-song and laugh at the awfulness of the sour notes and crackling voice.  I don’t need to watch American Idol audition shows for entertainment when I can just sing along with the radio in my car.  My singing in the shower, however, is totally different.  The acoustics are so good in my shower I can convince myself I could be another Patsy Cline.  Those listening on the other side of the door may disagree, but I refuse to ask.

Don’t even get me started on my dancing.  I never dance in public.  Believe me, no one wants to see this body move to a beat.  But home alone or sometimes in a grocery store if the piped in music is good enough I have moves to beat.  Nah, not even alone do I dance well.  Only in my mind am I graceful.

I spend at least an hour in my car to and from work every day so I need some entertainment to keep me alert.  That’s usually when I find my best material.  I emote greatly to music in my car.  I’ll pick out someone around me and the song will be all about them; hand gestures, facial expressions, the whole package.  And when I realize how absolutely ridiculous I must look on the outside looking in I crack myself up.  Then I wonder what other people think I’m laughing about and the cycle starts all over. I am my favorite performer and audience.  I can still find things to cry about in my car, usually by accident when I hear a sad song or poem, or a 9/11 tribute, but mostly I’m just trying to entertain myself to stay awake on my drive home.

You really should be with me when I’m alone.  I’m as colorful as a field of flowers in full bloom.  I’m great entertainment.  It’s when I’m around other people that I’m a general dud and take on the characteristics of a wallflower.  That’s the irony of introversion.  No one finds you interesting enough to get to know you, but if they knew you they would find out very interesting things about you.

Hence, I write.

Ghosts

A new year dawned today.  I’ve never been one for making resolutions because I’m not likely to keep them.  Broken resolutions equal failure and prick like thorns on a dewberry vine when you go to pull them from the garden.  Even with gloves on they find their way into skin.  Nor I have ever been one to make plans too far into the future.  I think that is one of my negative personality traits, actually.  Had I made future plans years ago perhaps I would be in a better station in life today.  Oh well, I am what I am.

Instead of looking ahead I can’t help but look back on something that happened last week.  It has been nagging at me ever since and anytime I’ve sat down to write about it I’ve drawn a blank.  I might draw one now too, but let’s see what happens.  

Only a week ago it was Christmas Day.  If I were Scrooge I would have looked into the window with The Ghost of Christmas Present as my sisters and brothers and our families spent the day together like we have done my whole life.  It was good.  At some point during the Middle Child pulled out that tin of video tapes again.   She must have found the missing link because this time she was able to play them on the television her favorite son gave her for Christmas.  So, instead of watching my younger self on a two inch camera monitor I got to see me on a 50 inch widescreen.  Not good.

The Ghost of Christmas Past made an appearance as she played a tape from a Christmas long ago when we all still piled into my parents’ living room and total mayhem ruled during the gift exchange.  I think it might have been Christmas 1998 or ’99.  The first thing I noticed is how detached I seemed to be from all that was happening.  I watched my son try to show me his Buzz Lightyear toy and then give up and take it to his dad instead.  I call those years the Lost Years because when my children were little I lost touch with the outside world and basically lost myself.  I know now, with video tape as evidence, the  years were not lost because of my children, they were lost because I was depressed.  Or maybe it was because it was Christmas and I was stressed as always trying to keep up with what my children were unwrapping to make sure the giver was given acknowledgement.  Maybe it was the chaos of the moment.  Maybe it was for a hundred other reasons I do not even remember now.

But that is not what has been bothering me all week.  

A pause in the tape and the scene skipped to my mother’s kitchen later in the day.  My family must have left because none of us were in the scene and the rest of the house was quiet.  My mother washed dishes, my brother played his guitar, my nieces sang and danced, my sisters danced, and my daddy sat at the kitchen table and cried.  No one seemed to notice he was crying, but there he was, with videotape as evidence.  At one point the camera panned the room and even settled on him for a second and I could see the telltale signs; hands rubbing his red face and a glisten of water in his eyes.  As if the videographer was embarrassed to capture that moment the camera shifted away.  A moment later a grandchild caught his attention and he perked up and played it off.

Why did my daddy cry when he in the middle of a happy moment surrounded by his children and grandchildren?  Maybe he was remembering the Christmases when we were all children and it was magical.  Maybe he was missing his parents.  Maybe he was missing the daughter he lost a few years earlier.  Maybe it was for a hundred reasons I will never know.

I think I know why but I can’t express it in words.  I think he cried for the same reason I cried during mass on Christmas Eve, as I have done every year since my sister died, and then him, and then my mother.   It’s a feeling of loss and hope at the same time.  It’s a feeling of sorrow and joy.  It’s a feeling that doesn’t make sense.

Why do I continue to look back instead of looking  forward?  Why is it easier to see the past instead of planning for the future?  I think it’s like reading a really great novel over and over.  Every time I read it I find a new meaning or discover clues in the beginning that play out in the end.  The past offers clues for the future, and like the gift of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come I can see my shortcomings and make changes for a better future.  That and because I know the future is not a given.  I have videotape as evidence.

Visiting Day

For the past few years I’ve spent a day before Christmas with my oldest friend and traveling partner visiting the final resting places of our most dearly departed.  The first year of the Annual Cemetery Visiting Day Tour was a rainy, dreary day that included wet heads, coconut soup and a Christmas Miracle.  Being the unobservant person I am known to be I would have missed the Christmas Miracle entirely had it not been for my OFTP and her very observant eyes.

What, pray tell, is the Christmas Miracle?  Well, only the most fantastic, unexplained mystery of all.  It was a large heart-shaped ring of rye grass growing across the graves of my most dearly departed parents.  It was so fantastic and mysterious we had to drive all the way back to Purvis to get a camera and then all the way again to the cemetery to take a picture of it.  After the shock and awe of the Christmas Miracle we passed another miracle of sorts, a white sasanqua that wept its soft, wet petals over the graves beneath its branches.  It was miraculous in its own right.

This year's tour wasn't quite as wet, but it was just as dreary of a day.  We added a companion to our trip, the niece of my OFTP who just happens to be a distant cousin of my own.  We drug the poor girl to the resting places of all of most dearly departed and forced her to listen to our stories of old.  These are stories we don’t have to remember because we’ll never forget.  Now, I’m sure she knows some things she wishes she could forget, like the circles we drove around old neighborhoods that were once part of a daily paths.  Bless her for not getting carsick.

This year I made sure to bring my camera along in case there were any Christmas Miracles to witness.  The first stop was my parents.  They got a sparkly tree, the same one as last year but Daddy was thrifty so I know he understands.

Next, my brother-in-law. I didn’t have anything for him, but I did a little cleaning and complimented him on a job well done.  *Wink*  He knows what I’m talking about.

Then onto my OFTP’s dad, a man I admired much.  I credit him for teaching me many things about the outdoors like how to fish and eat cold tamales out of a can.  I could always depend on him for a firm hug around my neck anytime I saw his smiling face.  He got a fancy tree from his daughter, but he already had a lovely display from his bride.

We then spent a few minutes in the area visiting with his parents and cousins, some of his favorite people.  He did love his people.

Next we visited the grave of another one I admired much.  He got a few acorns to remind him I was there.  Standing there reading the engraving on his stone my very observant OFTP brought my attention to what was happening above the stone.  Lo and Behold, another Christmas Miracle!  Who is the mysterious seed sower?  I don’t want to know.  It is better off being a Miracle.

My grandparents are in the same cemetery, so I stopped to wish them happy as well.  

This is where it usually ends, but this year I wanted to add one more stop.  Off to the city cemetery we went to visit my other grandparents.  My precious Granny lies for eternity between her gracious husband and her precious son, both whom went much too soon.  There I was able to give a family tree lesson to my distant cousin so she could connect the branches.  Little did she know she was going to visit her great, great uncle, the same one who played the baritone in the Woodsman of the World Marching band back in '27.

Next year I hope the weather will be our friend and we can add one more stop on the tour and visit my sister.  She would be so pleased to see us both, I’m sure.  

All in all it was a good day.  A day that started with Sonic ice and ended with Newk’s breadsticks.  Our heads stayed dry and because we were all together on the same journey our eyes stayed dry as well. 

Till next year, and the next Miracle, Merry Christmas!